Every June I make the same mistake. I look at the calendar, see all that open space, and think: this is the summer I’ll finally get ahead. And then August arrives, sunburned and slightly embarrassed, and I realize I spent the whole season rushing toward a finish line I invented.
So this year I’m trying something different. Not a productivity system. Not a reading challenge. Just a handful of small practices that seem, at least so far, to be helping me inhabit the days rather than just survive them.
Here are five worth considering.
1. Eat at Least One Meal Outside Per Week
Not a picnic. Not a special occasion. Just take your lunch — a sandwich, leftovers, whatever’s in the fridge — and sit outside to eat it. No phone. The change of setting does something strange and good to your sense of time. Twenty minutes outside feels longer, in the best way, than an hour hunched over a desk.
2. Keep a Single-Page Summer Journal
Not a daily diary. Just one page — an index card works — where you jot things worth remembering from the whole season. A funny thing your kid said. A good meal. An evening that felt like a gift. By September you’ll have a small, honest record of the summer you actually lived.
3. Read One Book Entirely for Pleasure
Not self-improvement. Not professional development. A novel, a collection of essays, a biography of someone you find genuinely interesting. Give yourself permission to enjoy it without extracting lessons from it.
4. Say No to One Thing You’d Normally Say Yes To
Summer has a way of filling up with obligations disguised as fun. Practice the quiet discipline of protecting one weekend, one evening, one stretch of time — and doing nothing organized with it.
5. Take a Walk Without Earbuds
Just once or twice a week. Let the neighborhood be the entertainment. You’ll notice things — a garden, a porch conversation, the particular sound of late afternoon — that you’ve been walking past for years.